How to Get Rich Programming

Remember, this is a game mode not created by Blizzard, but invented by multiplayer game modders using the tools provided with Warcraft III.

Actually there was a bonus level in the original Warcraft III where you did this, so I guess Blizzard invented it after all, at least the single player version of it.

captcha: orange (again!)

wow, assemblyā€¦ why? must have been a masochist :stuck_out_tongue:

As a hat tip to the community, Blizzard included their take on tower defense as a hidden mission in the Frozen Throne expansion.

Hehe, thatā€™ll teach me to read the whole post before I post againā€¦

dude you are feeding the dreamā€¦ I agree its possible and games like line rider, tower defense etc are a great way to rake in some dough having fun.

Actually, I remember playing several kinds of ā€œtower defenseā€ games in Blizzards Starcraft. Or does my memory fail me? Was tower defense truly invented in Warcraft and then recreated in Starcraft?

Doesnt really matter after allā€¦ What counts is Ive made my first comment on this blog. :wink:

Iā€™m pretty shure there were Tower Defense maps for Starcraft before Warcraft III even came out.
I remember hunting down different TD maps on Battle.net with friends on a LAN party. We wanted to play TD but noone still had the version we played before, and there were so many different versions, and almost all of them were either way too hard or laughably easy.
Itā€™s really hard balancing such a game.

Yeah, itā€™s an interesting new question thatā€™s coming up more and more: just how much money can you make by giving away your product?

DAMN YOU, ATWOOD! DAMN YOU!

I just burned up an hourā€¦ :frowning:

in starcraft, as terran u can put houses in front of turret (where 4 privates can get in) and towers

itā€™s weird that houses have so much hit point compared to turret and towers, therefore itā€™s a good shielding to incoming zerglings

but things may change/tweaked, i havenā€™t played it for years

The community had TD maps for the original Starcraft. WC3ā€™s map editor is a lot more powerful though (while being easier to use to boot).

You can strike gold doing this with business software as well. Iā€™ve done it, and we estimate revenue of between 5 and 10 million per year - if we sell to 10% of the market. The application isnā€™t some silly little game though. It took nearly a year of development and I did need a full time job during that time. I am still working a job ā€œjust in caseā€ but Iā€™m pretty confident that Iā€™ll be working from the Virgin Islands this time next year :slight_smile:

What I stumbled upon was a combination of things: an industry with no software, a good understanding of the needs of that industry, and partners in the industry who were willing to help test and design the thing in the first place (in exchange for a free lifetime license for the final product).

I also opted to ā€˜rentā€™ the software, like many virus-protector companies do, so that people have the option of using it temporarily for a lower price, and if they want to use it for longer, they get many advantages like auto-updates and so on. I priced it so incredibly low that it would be stupid to not get a copy of it, if you are in this industry. The license is $300 and $100 each year after the first year. The average commission earned from putting one customer through the system is around $3K, and this software lets you do several of those per day, whereas the old method sometimes took a few days to process one customer. I should charge moreā€¦

Find something like that and you can clean up. There are many industries that need software.

Clearing $8,000 a month and still asking for donations, nice!

http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/News.asp

And stupid me sent him $10 when he was going through the server troubles at the beginning of April. I enjoyed the game so donā€™t have a problem paying $10 for the entertainment, but donā€™t be asking for donations while you are making money hand-over-fist. I feel like a sucker.

Yeah, itā€™s an interesting new question thatā€™s coming up more and more: just how much money can you make by giving away your product?

Followed immediately by that other, less interesting, game: how much advertising can you stuff into your product?

Clearing $8,000 a month and still asking for donations, nice!

Yeah, I thought that was lame too. The minute you accept advertising, asking for donations is inappropriate.

Jasmine, what are the industries without software, today?

/bitter

I used to have dreams of programming things like that ā€“ then I got laid off.

And went from having a fun/hip office to a soul crushing grind of outputoutputoutput where everything is rushed into production and then must be supported due to the duct tape and popsicle stick construction every day.

Add to that some phantom pain in my arms/wrists that apparently has no cause (not C.T.) ā€“ and I can barely make it through a day here, let alone code fun little games in ā€œlanguagesā€ like Flash!!!1

There are ways to do this successfully. What few people realize is that you donā€™t have to be a programmer to create games for revenue.

I started out using a grid-based 2D game and app making tool and worked my way up from a free online game arcade to doing custom work for various companies that wanted product placement in games and freebies to give out. I also made good money adding adverts to games I created and selling the space to business clients.

I am using Multimedia Fusion 2 now, and sadly, they have not released the new version of the browser plug-in for it yet. With the last version, I started making a darn good living, and still do. After I had the software down, it only took about a year to get everything else going strong from game concepts to client fees. And believe me, I have connected with many other people doing the same thing and we do share ideas and resources.

So, I just wanted to point out that you donā€™t need to know C++ or assembly or any programming language to get into this. All you need is to take the short learning curve of grid-based, point-and-click software this company makes.

Well, you need some ideas and some graphics, but I am assuming that people who are motivated, like me, would be able to consider a good creation tool half the battle.

Hell, I have not been to a ā€œrealā€ job in six years and working at home is always the best way to go and more profitable than anything I have done in thirty years. Good luck.

Just remember, for every one success story on the internet, there are 100 stories of failure.

I am a single programmer, and have developed some very large and useful products, completely on my own.

  • Online File Backup System (servers and everything)
  • Community Anti-Spam for Outlook Express (global Basian anti-spam, ala Cloudmark)
  • Live Screen Saver Advertising Engine (think NY Giants screen saver, with pictures that update automatically, or for any business)

Sighā€¦ Those projects have taken me about 5 years of very hard programming.

And I just double checked my pockets, and I still dont have $100,000.

The success of Tower Defense is more about luck than anything else.

The guy was lucky he came up with a game that was good, and he was even MORE lucky that people paid attention, and downloaded it, and told their friends.

The guy couldnā€™t redo this in a hundred years.

This is NO slam against the guy, but you are dreaming if you think you can whip up a game, throw it on a few websites, tell your blogging buddies about it, and expect to get more than 1 download a day.

(Yeah, u guessed right, im a little bitter. Good for Paul, wish it was me.)

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Some nice ideas there. Thank you

John http://www.atlasescolar.com.ar

Jeff,

How many hits do you get here per month at Coding Horror? Why havenā€™t you sold your soul to the devil and integrated Googleā€™s Adsense into your website?

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doesnā€™t have to be typical flash games but flash movies or side shows are pretty popular as well, even surpasses games in my opinion in terms of popularity.